Presently, interior trim molding used to cover most frame components of a vehicle, such as the fore and aft pillar posts, are made of hard injection molded plastic materials that define a decorative cover but do not respond to impact loading so as to absorb energy. Future Federal Safety Regulations are expected to require that such trim moldings be configured to absorb energy on impact to offer better impact protection to the occupants of the vehicle in the event of an accident.
Pillar post, side rails and other like parts of a vehicle body are covered at the present time by polymeric injection molded parts that can be covered by decorative skins including fabrics. While such arrangements have an aesthetic appeal they do not provide controlled energy absorption of kinetic energy through energy absorption.
One proposal for such energy absorption is set-forth in U.S. Pat. No. 5,163,730 that includes a cover, a pillar and an interposed bracket that will buckle and deform to absorb kinetic energy. The arrangement requires the assembly of separate fasteners to connect an elastically deformable side portion of the bracket to a body member.
Another trim cover is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,857 that discloses a multipiece trim strip with a molded PVC channel and a strip metal reinforcement that is attached to flanges of a windshield pillar or to a side rail. The trim strip is disclosed in embodiments of FIGS. 3 and 4 as having a resilient plastic pad located on the interior surface of the trim arrangement.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,779,595 discloses a cover arrangement for a center pillar or quarter pillar of a vehicle body having inner and outer channel members forming the pillar. The pillar is covered by a trim panel that includes a substrate that is connected to the inner channel member by plastically deformable support arms or a shock absorber plate.
While suitable for their intended purpose the prior art arrangements do not provide structure that includes integral portions thereon that are easily connected to vehicle body members without the need for separate fasteners thereby to provide ease of assembly and precise location of an energy absorbing arrangement prior to installation of a decorative cover member; further, none of the prior art arrangements provide the ability to control or tune the level of energy absorption for a given application.